Testimony from a State Department official Thursday did little to dispel claims that an annual human-trafficking report was driven by politics.

State Department Undersecretary Sarah Sewall defended the integrity of the report, which upgraded the status of Malaysia and Cuba, to three members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by citing the report’s criteria, Secretary of State John Kerry's public comments, and her own assessment — but occasionally declined to comment on internal deliberations. The committee was unconvinced.